Volney Allan Richardson

(1880-1955)

Artist's Biography

Painter, muralist and illustrator Volney Richardson was born in Attica, New York in 1880. He studied under William Merritt Chase at the Buffalo School of Fine Arts, and with Edward Dufner at the Art Students League in New York City, courtesy of a scholarship he won in 1905. From 1907 to 1912 he made illustrations for magazines like McCalls and The People’s Home Journal, and books, as well as paintings for the American Lithographic Society. It is perhaps because of these diverse demands on his art that Richardson did not restrict himself to painting one or two themes; rather, he was known to paint landscapes, coastal and marine scenes, floral still lifes, and genre and figural work. Richardson moved to Buffalo in 1913, where he had several shows at the Albright Art Gallery (known today as the Albright-Knox Art Gallery). He also exhibited at the Art Students League in Buffalo and in New York, and the Easy Street Gallery in Nantucket—the island where he spent summers during the 1920s. Little is known of his last decades; he died in Houston, Texas in 1955.

Richardson’s easy, bright Impressionist style is best displayed in his plein air oil paintings. From Main-Street shows his successful combination of color and form to make a satisfying overall composition. As is true with most Impressionist works it is appealing both as a marker of a specific place and time, and as an abstract pattern of light and color. This was painted in 1925, just a year after the Easy Street Gallery opened in Nantucket—an establishment that reflected the thriving artist’s colony scene for two decades. Richardson was a frequent visitor to Nantucket, and exhibited this and other works at the famous Easy Street Gallery.